It is his accent. I haven't heard it anywhere else, but I am told by my sister who has been to Manhattan that he sounds like he has a light New York accent. It just affects his speech.

It isn't phonetically, if it was, he would be saying EM-AI-GEE for Mage, instead his accent makes him say Mashje.

I can tell because I have been through several years of speech therapy to correct my "R" and "S" and "SH" sounds, with my accent sounding very New England/ Bostonian, where I would replace an "R" sound with a "W" sound and drop the first consonant of every word.

Steve's accent causes his "SH" sound to bleed into his "J" sounds, which is a very minor change. It means the movements he uses to create the "J" sound are similar to his "SH" sound, which is common in the North Eastern United States.

Good thread, everyone needs to start doing mp3 questions for the show so we can make fun of all of our accents, not just steve's.

Anyways this thread reminded me of my old runningback coach/sociology teacher. He couldnt say any words with the "TH" sound to it. So instead of him saying,"Three hundred thirty three and a third" he'd say something like "Tree hundred tirty tree and a tird" was pretty funny, and he used it all the time on purpose while he was teaching/telling jokes or whatever, quite comical.

And I kid, I know no one was making fun of steve, you were just wondering

It wouldn't be such a good idea to make fun of Steve, I don't think.... Id imagine itd be something to the caliber of making fun of the Godfather. Next thing you know, you were banned from ever purchasing a copy of Oblivion and Spore.NOOOOO!!!!!11!!!!